Sermon from 22nd October 2006

One of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, gave us a very lively all-age service this Sunday.
Our reading was from Matthew 25:v31-45, Jesus’ parable about the sheep and the goats. Here’s Adrian’s talk – complete with stage directions!

1. Separating-out [an activity]

Pretend to have a box containing an important collection – all sorted-out – very fragile “Handle with Care”. Spill “the collection” of 100 coloured balls over the floor and get volunteers to help sort them out again into their colours – putting the reds and yellows on the left and the green and blues on the right.

How did we know how the balls were to be sorted? By their colours. Listen now to how Jesus tells us God will sort out the people of the world.

[Reading]

2. Sheep from Goats

The story that Jesus tells today is a very dramatic one: if you have seen the movies of Lord of the Rings, perhaps your imagination is helped to picture all the peoples of the earth gathered before the Son of Man (one of the names that Jesus used of himself) sat on his throne, surrounded by angels?

And then Jesus begins the task of judgement, separating out the people and putting them either to his left or to his right; a task that Jesus likens, not to separating out to balls of different colours, but rather to a shepherd separating out his sheep from his goats.

That will have been a familiar idea to the disciples. Even if they hadn’t done it themselves they had seen the shepherds in their villages returning from the hills in the evening leading their herds – which would have been a mixture of sheep and goats – animals that probably looked very similar, since we are not talking about the plump sheep or muscular goats of the English farmyard but the scrawny mountain animals that had to nibble enough to eat from the sparse coarse grass and vegetation on the Palestinian mountains. So they looked alike and could fend together during the day– but at night time the shepherd would have to separate them out. They had different needs. The sheep needed the warmth and shelter while the goats preferred the cool and the freedom to keep foraging. And anyway the sheep were more valuable and the shepherd wanted to make sure they inside the fold, safe from predators.

So the task is done, going through the flock and setting the sheep on one side and the goats on the other. What do you think the shepherd was looking for to tell them apart? [eg a beard; horns]

[Activity: how many goats can you see in this flock? With toy sheep – some dressed as goats]
[Then keep some of the little ones o make marshmallow sheep during the next bit]

3. Judgement

Jesus isn’t separating sheep from goats – but the blessed, the righteous - who will enjoy the Kingdom of Heaven: from the cursed who will go to eternal fire.

There is no doubt that for many of us this is an uncomfortable challenge –either because we don’t like the idea of heaven and hell; or because we don’t like the idea of judgment or of being judged.

It is worth putting the passage in its context: a few chapters ago, when Jesus had commented that the mighty Temple building in Jerusalem would soon lie in ruins, the disciples has asked him to tell them about the coming of God’s Kingdom – how would they know when it was coming? When would it come?

And so here in the dusk on the Mount of Olives, Jesus went on to teach them about the signs, the earthquake and the violence and the darkness; and then about the need to be ready because the timing is unknown but will be sudden (the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids) and the need to make sure we are worthy stewards of all that God has given us (the parable of the talents) so we can account to God when He comes back. And now this dramatic picture of judgement. Dramatic not least because of the contrast between the little, seemingly powerless, group gathered to listen, still to face the apparent defeat of Holy Week and the plain filled with people come to be judged.

Apart from the drama, there are two things that strike me about this picture:

· First the basis of judgment. We learn that the crucial issue will be whether our lives have reflected God’s love to us. Has that love been converted into practical love for others – the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, the sick, the poor? Or have we been living as hypocrites – saying one thing but living differently? Note the separation was of sheep and goats not sheep and wolves: the people on the plain may all profess to have faith – the test is whether that has been real. This not a time for argument or for words but for a judgement of action towards those in need [or some would say, to the disciples and the church?]
· Second both sides’ surprise? When had they earned or failed to earn this reward? Jesus reply shows his complete identification with the needs of man – he is that fly-covered child in Dafur; that thirsty family in central Africa; the sick mother in our street; that shoeless, tattered tramp in the doorway near Kings Cross; the offender institutionalised by a life spent in children’s homes and jail. And “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers o mine, you did for me.”

So the lesson is not easy – but is clear: let our faith be real in the way we treat each other and the rest of mankind.

[Now the makers of the marshmallow sheep can be asked to give theirs to someone else]